


Words like Scars

by Niki



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canonical Ending, F/M, Not A Fix-It, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Words, canonical character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 03:29:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: The last words your soulmate ever says to you are tattooed somewhere on your skin.Her mother believed the words came from the Force – a little manifestation of the power in everyone.





	Words like Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jungle_ride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungle_ride/gifts).



> I've never written this version of the soulmate words before. Thanks for giving me a chance to do it! It's not *quite* what you asked, but I couldn't make the trope work in another way... I also had to borrow some dialogue from the novelization to make this work.

Jyn didn't really know what it meant when she heard the words. “Lyra, put it down.” She did think about it later, a lot. Her parents were married, in love – they had to have known. They had to have seen the words on each other's skin. Had her father known, even as he said the words, what he was saying, what it meant?

She didn't know if it made it better or worse if he did. Who came up with the whole thing anyway? To get confirmation at the moment of your death that the person you shared your life with really was your soulmate?

And what of her mother? Had she already known when she hugged Jyn goodbye? Had she already said the words she'd seen on her husband's skin? Did she go back knowing she'd never say another thing to him, regardless of which one of them died?

Lyra had believed the words came from the Force – a little manifestation of the power in everyone. A gift and a burden. Jyn hadn't understood it when she first heard about it, her own words yet to appear. 

When they finally showed up when she was 14, they puzzled her. She was lucky in that her words manifested on her side because that meant she could easily read them herself but also cover them with ease. 

But who did she know who'd have known her father? Saw and Krennic. And Saw was not a soulmate, no, he was like a parent, albeit very different from her birth father. Where Galen had taught her about the stars and hiding, Saw taught her to kill and not die.

She loved him, even if she never called it that, but it wasn't the kind of love soulmates share. And after this parent abandoned her too, she started to think the words might be sarcastic. What _was_ she doing that might make a father proud? True, she did as he'd taught and hid, but she kept her gaze down, so the stars were lost to her.

Her parents hadn't needed the words, she was sure of it. They had loved fiercely, chosen to spend their lives together, to create life together. They'd known, they must have known. Was there something, a recognition, when they'd met? Did you really actually know even before the end because if not – what was the point?

*

There was no recognition, no immediate connection, no love at first sight. But there was something, a _growing_ connection, a realisation of similarity, soul-deep trust.

They must both have known. By the time they reached Scarif, he must have known. Is that why he was quiet in the elevator? Because he already knew, and knew what ever he said, it had been on her skin from the beginning? 

Because she had known. She had known, and the wonder had been married with sadness. For them there was no shared life to precede the words, no years of love. But they had this, and it was enough. 

When she said, “I'm glad you came,” it was for so much more than Scarif.

And she had known what Cassian was going to say, even before he said it, not only because they were dying, not only because they were soulmates, but because they were just what Cassian _would_ say, in a moment like that. The absolution and apology, the acknowledgement that her father had been someone worth making proud, the reassurance that she'd achieved it. 

His last words were for her, not for himself, and she loved him so fiercely in that moment that it was enough to fill a lifetime within those last seconds. She pulled him close, let him hide from the destruction in her body.

She could say something else. She could make his last words be, “I love you,” because if she said it, it would always have been so. The solid fatalism she'd thought the words represented was not absolute – she had the choice, she always did, it was just that someone or something had already seen her choice.

But she didn't need to say anything because he didn't need to hear anything else. He knew. It was there in his voice and in his eyes. He knew, and not just because they were dying. He knew because you didn't need to hear the words to realise and recognise the truth at the moment of your death.

So Jyn just pulled him closer, and didn't close her eyes. She welcomed the end, because it had brought her Cassian, and she had made her father proud.

* * *

Baze didn't need his words to to tell him his fate lay with the Force. He was content with the knowledge, and didn't even wish for anything else until a certain blind guardian-elect made a home in his heart.

He never needed to analyse it – whether he knew his words were for Chirrut because he was his soulmate, or whether he knew Chirrut was his soulmate because his words were just so like him. He would. He totally would.

Chirrut always seemed so sure of himself. Where for anyone else blindness might be a disadvantage, he'd transformed it into an advantage. But there were still things one needed eyesight for, and the first time Baze saw Chirrut show his vulnerable side was when he asked for a favour with a voice devoid of all humour.

“Do I have words?”

Of course Baze said yes, even if he was afraid. 

The words would be his, wouldn't they? He'd say them one day. So seeing them – saying them aloud – what if that was it? What if the mere act of reading them aloud was enough to trigger their effect?

But he said yes, because Chirrut asked. 

“Left shoulder blade, I think,” Chirrut said, removing his robes. “The Force vibrates there.”

“Chirrut. Don't go. Don't go, I'm here...”

“Well.” Chirrut was uncharacteristically hesitant.

“Well,” Baze said. Then, “Do you want to...” He didn't know how to offer, but luckily the other man knew what he meant, and turned, smiling.

“I'll know them sooner or later, won't I?”

That was the last time they said a word about their words, their reality a part of them, the acknowledgement, the acceptance, a matter-of-fact part of their lives.

Did Chirrut know, in the end, what it was he'd heard? Baze didn't even think of it, the words bursting out from his lips, from his soul, while Chirrut was lying in his arms. Then Chirrut opened his mouth, and he knew what he was going to say, he _knew_ , but it didn't make the words any easier to hear, nor did it take anything away from their meaning. 

He had always known he could afford to lose his faith, because it would be handed back to him, with his soul.

 

The Force was with him, and so was Chirrut – to death, and beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> Their words:
> 
> Galen: "You have to come with us. Galen."  
> Lyra: "Lyra, put it down."  
> Cassian: "I'm glad you came."  
> Jyn: "Your father would be proud of you."  
> Chirrut: "Don't go. Don't go, I'm here..."  
> Baze: "Look for the Force and you will always find me."


End file.
